Developers and Designers

When Santa Fe homeboy Tom Ford decided to build a monster house on top of a hill in Santa Fe, a hill that had already caused a ruckus between the city and the previous owners when they tried to build a different monster house, the powers that be rolled over and died. I guess Tom’s rationale, that he had to have a house big enough for his whole family to stay over, pulled at the heartstrings of the city councilors. They asked him to nip and tuck a little, here and there, which he graciously did, being the consummate designer that he is.

Tom Ford is the embodiment of two of the world’s worst professions: developers and fashion designers. Technically, he’s not a developer, he only hires them. His wealth underwrites their mad desires to build 15,000 square-foot what—mansions? manors? monstrosities? —you can’t really call them houses, that are the repositories of conspicuous consumption, from their Jacuzzis and indoor swimming pools to their stainless steel refrigerators and Wolf stoves. The ones who build mansions for clients like Tom Ford probably think they’re creating works of art. The ones who buy up vacant land and then subdivide it into gated communities so they can build many mansions at one time probably think they’re the engines that drive the economic machine. The Santa Fe city fathers (city fathers everywhere, actually) certainly think they are. The bottom line is always that without the construction industry the economy of the city will crash: not only will the workers be laid off, but all the lumber stores, the paint stores, the hardware stores, the glass stores, the plumbing supply stores, the electrical supply stores, the fixture stores, the appliance stores, ad nauseam, will go bankrupt. It’s as if nobody else already lives in the city and hires workers to restore, upgrade, and add onto houses already here and buys all the necessary stuff to do so at the lumber store, the paint store, hardware store, etc. There is no understanding that there is a difference between economic development and economic growth, that development means continued urban sprawl and expanded markets that eventually degrade the quality of city life. Managed growth is finding ways to enhance the opportunities for workers who want to increase their skill levels or find new jobs that contribute to the well-being of the communities. Sustainability is finding ways to create neighborhoods that allow people to work and shop near home and be less reliant on their cars, roads, and strip malls.

But who cares about all that? Certainly not Tom Ford. He only lives here part of the year anyway, and other than attending a city council meeting to defend his property wouldn’t be caught dead at a community meeting to discuss why the State Engineer’s Office is allowing the county to transfer almost 2,000 acre feet of water rights from Taos County to underwrite develop in the Pojoaque Valley (but that’s another story, saved for later). He’s too busy designing the clothes for all the other Santa Fe second home owners who only fly in to attend the opera or chamber music series and then jet back to their penthouses (those monstrosities actually have a designated name) on Fifth Avenue. Have you ever watched a New York or Paris fashion show on TV and seen what these guys like Tom Ford think women should wear? It’s enough to make you anorexic from throwing up. Not only would the majority of women in this country not be caught dead in these get-ups, I can’t imagine where the Fifth Avenue matrons actually wear this stuff. Actually, they don’t even wear it to the Santa Fe Opera, where the favorite mode of attire is tight-fitting jeans and sequined tank tops. Do they wear it to the grocery store to buy foi gras? Do they wear it to their toddlers’ $60,000 a year pre-schools when they go to pick them up (or do only chauffeurs do that?) Do they wear it to cocktail parties where they talk about bond trading and learning Spanish so they can communicate with their Salvadoran maid? I guess they must wear it to MOMA for openings. After all, it’s art too, que no? Jackson Pollack must be rolling over in his grave.

Solution: Turn Tom Ford’s business into a co-op, where the people who want to wear his clothes have to work in his sweatshops making them.